Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

The Crayola Theory of Demon Hunting

Remember Jerry Mungadze, the “ex-gay” therapist who claims he can tell whether someone is gay by having them color a picture of the brain and, if they use a pink crayon, they’re gay? Turns out he can also tell whether someone is possessed by demons in this same manner. He told Benny Hinn that if they use black, brown or gray colors for the brain, they’re demon-possessed. This is the “science” being practiced by “ex-gay” therapists.

Re “if they use a pink crayon, they’re gay? Turns out he can also tell whether someone is possessed by demons in this same manner. He told Benny Hinn that if they use black, brown or gray colors for the brain, they’re demon-possessed”
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??? I don’t understand Brayton’s point. 3 and 4 year old toddlers always say the strangest things to each other
when they are coloring cartoon books at the day care nursery.

If you use a pink crayon to draw something that’s always pictured as pink, you’re gay? That’s gotta be the most transparently desperate medical fraud gambit EVER! This guy gives pseudoscience a bad name.

Can we start locking these frauds up please. It’s just getting way, way too ridiculous, next they will start diagnosing medical conditions based on the four humours. What fucking century do these people and the people who listen to them live in?

Living brains are pink (from the blood), but if drained and put in a jar of formaldehyde, they are gray. I’m not surprised that a Fundy Christian is ignorant of the real world, but what I want to know is, what color would Mungadze color it? The more neutral colors are out, and the more accurate living color pink is out, so what… green, purple? What crayon does he use when he colors cows?

Michelangelo painted a beautiful brain on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. It’s the thing that’s shaking a finger at that rather mindless Adam. I wonder what Jerry Mungadze would make of all those manly hunks whose job it is, according to Sister Wendy, to hold up the ceiling.

Gretchen: So I get to be the first person to say that if you believe in demons, and that they possess people, you have no business being a therapist in the first place?

Yes, but you’re probably not the first one to think it. Of course, that’s not the only disqualifying belief he has. Were we seriously bored, we could probably spend some time arguing over which of his delusions would produce the most harm to his patients.